Saturday, 28 February 2015

And so we bid farewell – for the time being – to the London Nightly Photoblog!All through February we've been taking one last look at London at the end of every London Walking day. Over this past week our pics have had a museum theme to tie in with our February London Walks Podcast on Museums.As ever, this slot is dedicated to all of our London Walkers and Daily Constitutionalists. Thanks for walking and thanks for reading!We hope you've enjoyed our shots – the London Nightly Photoblog will return for another run in June this year.

A
London Walk costs £9 – £7 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

This week The Guardian
published an excellent piece posing the vexed question: who owns the banks of
the River Thames?

"The Thames Path, which
gained official National Trail status in 1989, is a 213-mile pedestrian route
from the river’s source to the Thames Barrier that takes in some of Britain’s
most iconic sites along the way. Sixty miles of the trail run through London,
on both the north and south bank of the capital’s most famous waterway;
Transport for London classifies this stretch as one of the most important
pedestrian thoroughfares in the capital, and in 2013 Lonely Planet declared it
to be among the finest urban walks on Earth.

In the centre of town
it is possible, in many places, to stroll uninterrupted by the Thames and enjoy
green parks, comfortable benches and vibrant cultural institutions along the
way. Elsewhere though, the path bears more resemblance to a high-security
prison corridor than a public right of way: gates, spikes and CCTV warning
notices stand sentinel over fragmented patches of riverside that start and end
abruptly, and whose access rights are shrouded in a veil of bureaucratic
obscurity…"

Our weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

Our advice this week is: 'Ave a cuppa tea… at Twinings Tea Shop & Museum, 216 The Strand. (We'll be visiting Twinings on the next part of our London Museums Podcast.)

Here's what they've got to say for themselves on the Twinings blog:

In a time when coffee was king, one man, Thomas Twining, went against the tide to share his love of tea. His passion turned a little-known drink into the nation’s favourite hot beverage.

For us, tea is more than just a drink. It's been part of our daily lives and that of generations of tea lovers for over 300 years.

Our story started in 1706. Back then, the most popular drinks in England were coffee, gin and ale - even at breakfast! Although tea had been drunk in China for thousands of years, it had only just been imported to England, and lots of people were suspicious of it.

It reminded us of our
own version of this tale, concerning Isobella (then three years old) daughter of Daily Constitutional Editor Adam and London Walks guide Karen. It was first published on the 23rd March 2011 and subsequently picked up by East Finchley's local newspaper The Archer…

Here, we're reblogging that post in its entirety…

We’re hailing the people that keep our Underground stations going – the non-driving staff of the Underground. In particular, we’re saluting the good folk at East Finchley Station (although the sentiment applies right across the network). Here’s East Finchley station’s most famous detail…

And here’s MooMoo…

MooMoo is the principal character in our story – a melodrama, with a happy ending, in which we prove that both London and the blogosphere needn't be such angry places after all.

MooMoo is the favourite toy of Isobella, the three-year-old daughter of London Walks guides Karen and Adam. MooMoo goes everywhere with Isobella. As you can plainly see…

Isobella without MooMoo is like Pie with no Mash. Elephant sans Castle. Wills with no Kate. Unthinkable.

Last Sunday, however, on the return journey from seeing mummy do her Royal Wedding Walk, Isobella left MooMoo on the train…

(If Isobella could interject, she would probably pick this point to do so. And she would point out that it was in fact her idiot father who was responsible for this atrocity and that both Isobella and MooMoo remain unimpeachable in this catalogue of neglect and near-disaster.)

It was only as the doors closed, leaving us on the platform, that we noticed that MooMoo was heading toward the wilds of High Barnet. Alone.

Tears ensued. Tears the size of flashbulbs.

Isobella was crying, too.

As we approached the station staff to see if anything could be done, my cynical Londoner’s inner voice kicked in. It’s futile. They’re busy people. They won’t want to know.

How wrong I was.

The station supervisor Derek sprang into action. We followed him to the office. “What carriage were you in?” he asked. We told him we were in the front carriage.

In the office, he called ahead to Finchley Central. But as he did, a light on his computer screen went from red to green.

“Ah!” he exclaimed in exasperation. “See that?”

He pointed to the green light on his screen.

“That’s a green signal at Finchley Central. The train’s on the move. We’re too late.”

Derek made another call, this time to West Finchley, where he informed the station of MooMoo’s plight.

“Well try to get MooMoo at West Finchley,” he informed Isobella.

The wait was an anxious one – although my mood was lightened by the fact that Derek was now calling MooMoo by her first name.

When the phone finally rang, it was Peter at West Finchley station. MooMoo was saved and waiting for us in the safety of the ticket office! A short trip to West Finchley station and an emotional platform scene to rival anything out of Brief Encounter – and our melodrama was over.

We’ll never forget the day that we lost MooMoo.

And I doubt that this one tiny vignette was a one-off that day.

I’m willing to bet that if Derek’s computer screen had an animated diagram of the similar small acts of kindness that took place all over the network, then it would have been flashing like the sky on Guy Fawkes night.

Okay, there are grumpy and intransigent LU staff, too, of course there are. All Londoners have got a tale to tell on that front. But the good grace with which the Good Guys perform their everyday tasks shouldn’t go unnoticed just because of the growly ones.

Big thanks to Derek and Peter and all the great folk we met that day on the Northern Line. London’s finest and no mistake.

Friday, 27 February 2015

Our new series for 2015! Daily Constitutional editor Adam takes us on a Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London – 20 stops on a metropolis-wide search for all things illustrated. He'll be taking in everything from Gillray and Hogarth, to Scooby Doo and on to Deadpool and beyond! In addition he'll guide you to the best in London comic book stores as well as galleries that showcase the best in the cartoonist's art.

Panel 17: Gosh! Comics

I've already pointed you in the direction
of Orbital Comics in the Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London. And before
our 20-part series ends, you should also check out Gosh!

Gosh! is not only a great comic book store
– well-stocked and friendly – but their events are top notch, too. This
evening, for example, sees the launch do for Princess Decomposia & Count
Spatula, a lovely looking book by Andi Watson.

Andi Watson will be signing copies but if
you can't make it along you can reserve or order a signed copy by emailing info@goshlondon.com.

There has been a Gosh! comic book store in
London for as long as I can remember. Its former home was near the British
Museum but it can currently be found doing its bit for turning back the tide
of corporate dullness in Soho.

Another thing to love about Gosh! is that
they give pride of place to indy comics, right at the top of the stairs – you
can't miss 'em if you're heading down to the comic book and back issues
section. Support your local comic book store and support your local comic book
artists and creators at the same time.

(Indeed the next comic book we'll feature in
our tour gives Gosh! Comics a starring role in the narrative. Metroland was
recommended to us by Camilla at Orbital Comics and it will be the next stop on
our Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London.)

Soho itself provides rich pickings for
cartoons and their creators. Being an iconoclasts' paradise Soho is a
natural home for cartoonists – Private Eye is based here (see earlier blog post). The defining events of 19th Century Soho, the cholera epidemics, also inspired some famous and angry cartoons. Perhaps most famous of all
is A Court for King Cholera…

… by John Leech, published in Punch 1852.
Twenty years earlier George Cruikshank had already poked fun at a profiteering
medical profession in an earlier outbreak of the disease…